Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/62

54 PAL thákurdwara. One of the mosques is a very showy fiorid structure, built recently by Risáldár Imtiaz Ali, the principal Muhammadan resident. A brick school-house was built in 1865. The school is a village one, with an average attendanee of 60 pupils. There is a small mud-built Saráe, which is repaired annually from local funds. At the market on Sundays and Thursdays grain, salt, vegetables, tobacco, and cloth are bought and sold. The only shops are those of two grain-sellers, two confec- tioners and one seller of pán-leaf. A little coarse country cloth is manufactured. PALIA Pargana,Tahsil NIGHÁSAN—District KHERI.---This pargana lies between the Sarda on the south and the Suheli-an old, channel of the Chauka-on the north ; it is bounded by Nighásan. pargana on the west, by the Sháhjahanpur district and a portion of Naipál on the east. It is 23 miles long and 11 miles broad; its area is 139 square miles, divided into 50 townships. Of cultivated land there are 37 square miles. Much of the arable land recorded as barren being included in the Government forest, there is really hardly any barren land in the pargana. The level lies gene- rally very high, quite above the reach of inundation, still it is not so ele- vated as that beyond the Suheli northwards, and the forest generally con- sists therefore not of sál but of dhák, khair, and sbísham. Up till 50 years ago the Sárda ran in the channel now indifferently called the Suheli or Sarju. Into this fell two streams called the Buri and the Newri, with its affluent the Nagraur. When the Sárda changed its course more to the south past Maraunchá Chát, the rivulets abovementioned continued to supply a scanty stream, which now does not cover a tenth of the channel formerly belonging to the Sárda. The Suheli is a picturesque little stream running under high banks, and generally fringed with extensive shisham forest; its breadth opposite Khairigarh is not above twenty yards. In some places , where the ancient river scoured deeply, its waters are deep, dark, and slug- gish, but it is generally easily fordable, the depth not exceeding three feet. It is much used for rafting timber from the Government forests to Bahramghat on the Kauriála. The eastem portion of the pargana from Tikaulia lies very high and quite beyond the reach of floods, but much of it has been cut away recently by the Chauka. Westward, however, from Tikaulia and Patihan the whole of the land almost is the alluvial deposit left by the Sárda in its various wanderings. There are innumerable channels, some dry and silted up, others containing stagúant water and treacherous quicksands, others in which tiny streams still flow over darkquaking mud-allaregenerally covered with magnificent crops of the narkul, a gigantic reed, whose waving plumes of pure white flossy filaments cover acres of ground surrounded by the dark green grasses and conférvæ. Crossing one of these streams at Tikaulia we enter a large tract running up to the north-west, which formerly belonged to Khairigarh, where the river Sárda ran in the channel above pointed out. Recently it has been demarcated with Palia without much reason, as the entire tract belongs to the Raja of Khairigarh. It is an extensive prairie, edged near the rivers with fine shisham woods for many miles. The traveller on an elephant even will seldom be able to see more than a few